was torn by conflicting emotions. By a sudden impulse I caught her in my arms, and kissed the moisture from her cheeks, which in an instant glowed like crimson. She started back from my embrace with the offended dignity of maiden modesty, and I knelt down, and, invoking God to witness the purity of my intentions, vowed to guard and to protect her with a brother's love. And thus her fears were calmed; but alas, from that moment our fate was sealed. The frequency of my visits to Brookes's cottage afforded, as might be expected, matter for village gossip, too interesting to be overlooked, and it became necessary that our interviews should be arranged with secrecy and caution. The heart of every woman tells her, almost instinctively, of the close affinity between guilt and concealment, and that of Mary shrank from it with fear and trembling. But she was young, inexperienced, and, above all-she loved. Our place of rendezvous was the tower on the hill already mentioned, and there we met at midnight, in silence and secrecy. Night after night these visits were repeated, and there did we linger till the dawn of morning-twilight gave the signal for departure. The Being who alone knew our weakness, knows likewise with what purity of purpose we trode the brink of the precipice to which our steps had brought us. Need I go on? The tale of guilty love, of hearts alike deceiving and deceived, has been often told. We were but weak and erring creatures-at length caution slept-Mary ceased to be virtuous and the reproaches of my own heart told me I was a seducer. 1 CHAPTER XIX. Oh, County Guy, the hour is nigh- The orange flower perfumes the bower, The lark, his lay who trill'd all day, Breeze, bird, and flower, they know the hour- Quentin Durward. On the night following I was again at the tower, but the hour of tryste passed, and Mary came not. It was a moonless summer's night, and the air was sultry and oppressive. For long hours did I sit watch. ing for the sound of her footsteps, in the path that wound along the hill-side, and start at every rustling of the leaves made by the fox, as he stole through the bushes towards his earth in the furze cover, -but Mary came not, and the night passed in solitude and sadness. I lingered till the day at length dawned; and the song of the birds that came forth to carol their sweet matins in the sunrise, warned me that my hopes were vain, and I sought my pillow with worn spirits and an anxious bosom. My dreams were wild and dreary, and I woke only to encounter the fierce upbraidings of offended conscience. A lovely, friendless, innocent, and defenceless creature had trusted herself to my honour and protection, and I had plunged her in irretrievable ruin. What need was there to add new and more intolerable anguish to the griefs of one already desolate and oppressed? Why select as a victim, the most innocent, the most confiding, the most unhappy of her sex? In vain did I attempt to "lull the still small voice," by pleading that I too had fallen unwarily into the snare. The pitfall was not dug in my path-I had sought it -I had voluntarily courted the temptation under which I fell. Had I not sworn, and called on the Deity to witness my truth, to love her but with a brother's love, and to guard her honour stainless and immaculate? She had trusted me. To her innocent and unsuspecting heart, my promises had been as those of gospel truth. She had clung to them with woman's faith. In them she had embarked all that belonged to her in this world, her innocence-and she had been betrayed. What was it now to say, that I had over-rated my strength, or to deplore the fatal consequences of my ungoverned passions? Are not the consequences of his guilt lamented even by the most selfish and hardened sinner, when the enjoyments it afforded him are past? But what could avail regret, however bitter? The victim had fallen-the altar had been desecrated by the sacrifice, and the immolation of innocence had been completed. "Vile seducer! unprincipled betrayer of confiding love! Like Cain, shalt thou be branded among men, and go down into the grave with the guilt of perjury on thy soul." Never till now had I felt the bitterness of an upbraiding conscience, and it goaded me to the quick. There is no extremity of bodily suffering I would not have preferred to the mental agonies I then endured. I strove to escape from my own reflections, but could not-like the wretch, who feels in his quivering flesh the flames by which he is surrounded, and attempts escape in vain, for he is chained to the stake. And Mary too, where was she? Might she not have been driven to some act of despair, and might not even the guilt of murder be added to my already dark catalogue of crimes? Was I not once more to see, and comfort her, to join my tears with her's, to tell her how much her very weakness had endeared her to my heart? I was indeed full of anxiety on her account, but I feared to venture to the cottage, for I knew my visits there were watched, and guilt is ever full of many fears. My steps were directed, therefore, to a part of the park, from which it was overlooked, and there did I sit for hours gazing on its thatched roof, and the little garden that lay between it and the road, neglected and full of weeds. The sun had gone down ere I quitted my station No living being had approached the house, no smoke rose from its chimney top-it seemed tenantless and deserted. Sick of soul, did I return to Thornhill; I shrank from society-the caresses even of little Lucy were become hateful and distressing. I pushed her rudely from me, and while the tears started up into her large and blue eyes at my unkindness, I retired to solitude and suffering, in my own apartment. Night came, and the stars again saw me at my watch-tower on the hill-top. They rose and disappeared, but Mary's footstep had not gladdened my ear, nor her tall and slender form delighted my eye. Heavily did the sun appear that morn to raise his disk above the dark curtain of the clouds, and less than usually jocund, methought, was the jubilee of living nature in his return. I did not return home, but roamed onward through the woods, and selecting the path that led to where the shadow of the dark green pines was deepest and least pervious, I cast myself on the ground, and listened to the melancholy sound of the waterfall, that ascended from the glen. It was noon ere I reached Thornhill; a letter had come for me by the post, and I knew it was from Mary. I thrust it hastily into my bosom, rushed up stairs to my apartment, and having secured my chamber door from the possibility of intrusion, I opened it with a trembling heart. It was indeed from Mary, and gave melancholy evidence that her spirit, which till now had borne up against sorrow and misfortune, was at length broken. It contained no reproaches, she upbraided me not with my broken faith. She had foolishly, she said,-almost wickedly loved, where love was hopeless, and a dreadful punishment had followed her offence. She said that all thought of happiness had fled for ever, and she now knew herself to be a creature alike alienated from God, and despised by man. She told me, too, that her father now treated her with more harshness and cruelty than ever; that he even threatened her life, if she refused to pay the price -of his safety by marrying Pierce; and what could 'she do?—her heart was broken, and she knew not. She concluded by wishing me farewell for ever. We could never meet again. She had been guilty, but her nature would not suffer her to persist in guilt. Her love would cease only in the grave, it was mine unalienably, indefeasibly mine, yet she desired me to forget her. She was, she said, but a guilty, miserable, and worthless thing, unworthy of a thought, a weed tossed upon the waters, bound by no tie, and destined to be the sport of wind and waves. The letter was written with trembling fingers, and blotted with tears. Shall I attempt to describe the effect it produced on me? No. The feelings of suffering that letter cost me shall still rest undisturbed in their sepulchre, nor shall the 1 |